Sorry about my lack of postage.

Wow sorry guys about the past few days. I have just been super busy but we have a lot to catch up on. Lets start with the field trip that we went on last Thursday. We went to the churches around the Old City. This is a picture of us in the "Upper Room" which is actually in the basement of the church. We had this firecracker of a nun who gave us a tour of the room. I got yelled at a few times, oops. But this is the place where they think that the Last Supper occurred.

The next stop was the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which is the traditional site for the crucifixion, anointing, burial, and resurrection of Christ. When you walk in you see the Stone of Unction which is a sacred rock for many people. Thousands of people flock here to touch this rock because it was the rock that Christ was anointed on.

 This is the top of the Hill of Golgotha and where the cross was placed. To make it clear, the professors and most Church leaders do not think that this is the correct site but it is still a beautiful church that commemorates it.

This picture was taken in front of the shrine where the tomb was. 

 The above picture is what they call the "eye of the needle" It is an opening on the sides of ancient gates. This is found within St. Mark's church. The picture below is us in front of the mosaic that details the walk from Gethsemane all the way to the Restoration.

This is St, John's church which is the oldest church within Jerusalem!

The next day we had our shopping extravaganza! WOOO. I saved all of my souvenir shopping for this day, I scouted, shopped, and prepared for this day and it was magical. I bought more things than planned but still spent less than expected. I was carrying bags galore but luckily I had a shopping sherpa to carry all of my things. 

That night we had our formal talent show, I was actually in it! I sang Phantom of the Opera, just kidding but this was a picture of us afterwards.

Yesterday we had a great field trip, it started off with a stop at Qumran which is the caves where they found the Dead Sea Scrolls Last week I went to the Israeli museum and saw the Dead Sea Scrolls. The story about these caves is that there were two young shepherd boys that we were throwing rocks and they heard pottery shatter in the caves and voila they found the Dead Sea Scrolls.

 Look at the black holes in the background and those are the caves. There are tons of caves in the sides of the mountain.

The next stop was at Masada which is one of the largest city/ tels. This was the last stop for the Roman Siege and it is still in great condition! The story about this location is that the people here did not want to come under hostage or be taken so they decided to commit suicide. It is a really sad story, the leaders of the community first killed their wives and children then they drew lots to kill each other and then the last person committed suicide. But there was one woman and her two children hid in the cistern so they told the story.  They then burnt the city so the Romans could not have any of it.

 This was after we drew lots. I was the one who got killed.

The next stop was the Ein Gedi Nature Reserve and there was these wonderful waterfalls. It was 107 degrees outside so it was soooo hot. We were dying out there so when we got to the waterfalls we flung ourselves in them! There are lie five levels of waterfalls so we would swim for a few minutes and then hop up to the next one.

 

The next stop was at the Dead Sea, wow was it salty! It is true you can just wade in the water. Like half of our bodies were out of the water at all times.

 

 The water is boiling hot though, woo. It is also the worst tasting water that I have ever had. There was a strict no splashing rule because if it even got close to the eyes it burned. Our skin was so smooth when we got out. It felt so nice.

 Model Pose

Today we had a free day so this morning we went and saw the Bar Mitzvah's that occur every Monday and Thursday morning at the Western Wall.

 We found this street on top of the roofs so we hiked it and took this urban photo.

 This is a view from out chapel. It is going to be so boring to sit in church now. I've been spoiled.